Theresa May will be dragged down by a “Black Wednesday-style” crisis within months of her expected election triumph, Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has predicted.

In a close-of-campaign interview, Mr Farron warned the Prime Minister’s joy would be shortlived – because Brexit would overwhelm her, just as a disastrous European policy swamped John Major’s premiership.

In late 1992, public opinion turned sharply against a Conservative Prime Minister, five months after his own election victory, when sterling crashed out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM).

Later, the Treasury estimated that the unsuccessful fight to keep the pound in the ERM had cost taxpayers £3.4bn – wrecking the Tories’ reputation for economic competence.

In the same way, Mr Farron said, the folly of Ms May’s Brexit policy would quickly be exposed, forecasting an early collapse of the exit negotiations.

“She may win a landslide like Margaret Thatcher but, within a matter of months, she will be in the same sort of mess that John Major and [Chancellor] Norman Lamont were in after Black Wednesday,” he told The Independent.

“Early on, it will become clear that any free trade deal hinges on adjudication by the European Court of Justice – and I can’t see how she has any wriggle room, politically, to deliver that.”

At a campaign event this week, the Prime Minister vowed: “I am very clear that the European Court of Justice and its jurisdiction in the UK is going to be ended.”

Mr Farron said there could be an attempt to fudge the issue, with adjudication by a body linked to the ECJ, but added: “The Tory party would tear itself to bits over that.

“The chances of her getting that past the likes of Dominic Raab and David Davies – let alone the Bill Cashes of this world – are absolutely zero.”

The Lib Dem leader added that business would be “horrified” by the failure, at the same time as the public was recoiling over fresh cuts to schools, the police and health services.

“Already, two-thirds of headteachers are making redundancies – and that’s before it becomes apparent that we are heading, not for a hard Brexit, but for a granite Brexit,” Mr Farron said.

“It’s almost impossible to see how Theresa May doesn’t have the sort of year that, by Christmas, leaves her looking like John Major and Norman Lamont.”

Asked if that meant he believed the UK leaving the EU with “no deal” was now inevitable – which Ms May has said she would accept – Mr Farron replied: “I suspect it is.”

The interview took place as Mr Farron travelled across the Pennines to Yorkshire, at the end of what appears likely to be a hugely disappointing campaign for his party.

Far from gaining large numbers of seats – thanks to angry Remain-backing voters – the Lib Dems are fighting to cling onto the nine they have, marooned in single figures in the polls.

Last week, Mr Farron pointed to his opposition to the “dementia tax” as his “big offer”, apparently downgrading his calling card at the start of the campaign – a second referendum on any final Brexit deal.

But he denied he had switched tack, saying a further referendum, 1p on income tax to rescue the NHS and social care and fighting the dementia tax had always been his “three points throughout the campaign”.

“I’m confident we will be the only opposition party making gains – although, given that both Labour and the SNP will contract, they may not be saying much,” the Lib Dem leader said.

'We just saw a major rift open in the US stock market that we haven’t seen since the dot-com bust in 1999. While the Dow rose by almost half a percent to a new all-time high, the NASDAQ, because it is heavier tech stocks, plunged almost 2%. Tech stocks nosedived while others rose to create new highs. Is this a one-off, or has a purge begun for the tech stocks that have driven the nation’s third-longest bull market?

Yesterday’s dramatic “rotational” divergence between tech stocks and the rest of the market, which as Sentiment Trader pointed out the only time in history when the Dow Jones closed at a new all time high while the Nasdaq dropped 2% was on April 14, 1999, stunned many and prompted Bloomberg to write that “a crack has finally formed in the foundation of the U.S. bull market. Now investors must decide if any structural damage has been done.” (Zero Hedge)

This is important because, without the nearly constant lead of those tech stocks, the market would have been a bear a long time ago. Tech stocks created half of the market’s gains in 2017. Financials, which led the Trump Rally, also hit the rocks in recent weeks, at one point erasing almost all of their gains for 2017, though they recovered a little of late. If both continue to falter, the rally rapidly implodes and maybe the whole bull market with it.

The Tech sector suffered its worse high-altitude nose bleeds at the end of May — the biggest outflow in over a year. Said Miller Tabak’s Matt Maley in a note to clients:

Everybody remembers 2000, so they might be getting a little nervous with this development. I just wonder how many people have said to themselves, ‘If AMZN gets to $1,000, I’m going to take at least some profits. (Zero Hedge)

Last Friday, of course, may be a one-off, but it may also be happening because central banks are pulling the plug on their direct ownership of the stock market or, at least, their hoarding of tech stocks. That direct cornering of the stock market largely went unnoticed until this past quarter. Central banks now have enough interest throughout the US stock market to be considered as having cornered the entire stock market, which means they have the capacity to let it fall or to keep it where it is by just refusing to sell their own stocks.
Have central banks rigged the stock market entirely?

Whether or not the market implodes now depends entirely on whether central banks let it fall. If they decide to continue to buy up all the slack, they may be able to keep it artificially afloat a lot longer because they can create infinite amounts of money so long as they keep it all in stocks so that it only creates inflation in stock values, as it has been doing, and not in the general marketplace. We have certainly seen that not much of it trickles from Wall Street down to Main Street. So, there is little worry of creating mass inflation from mass money printing.

I have long suspected that central banks were the only force preventing the crash of the NYSE that I predicted for last year and that started last January, which was the worst January in the New York Stock Exchange’s history. Last week, however, was the first time I read something that indicates I was right about the Fed propping up the stock market in order to take us through an election year by the extraordinary means of buying stocks directly.

In an article titled “Central Banks Now Own Stocks And Bonds Worth Trillions – And They Could Crash The Markets By Selling Them,” Michael Snyder writes,

Have you ever wondered why stocks just seem to keep going up no matter what happens? For years, financial markets have been behaving in ways that seem to defy any rational explanation, but once you understand the role that central banks have been playing everything begins to make sense…. As you will see below, global central banks are on pace to buy 3.6 trillion dollars worth of stocks and bonds this year alone. At this point, the Swiss National Bank owns more publicly-traded shares of Facebook than Mark Zuckerberg…. These global central banks are shamelessly pumping up global stock markets, but because they now have such vast holdings they could also cause a devastating global stock market crash simply by starting to sell off their portfolios…. The truth is that global central banks are the real “plunge protection team”. If stocks start surging higher on any particular day for seemingly no reason, it is probably the work of a central bank. Because they can inject billions of dollars into the markets whenever they want, that essentially allows them to “play god” and move the markets in any direction that they please. But of course what they have done is essentially destroy the marketplace. A “free market” for stocks basically no longer exists because of all this central bank manipulation. (The Economic Collapse Blog)

It is no secret, of course, that central banks were attempting to create a wealth effect by pumping up stocks through their own member banks — buying US bonds back from banks with free overnight interest with the proviso that banks use the income to buy stocks. As I wrote during last year’s stock market plunge, even central bankers finally admitted to that.

What is a secret is the fact that they have started buying stocks directly in order to pump up stock indexes. Federal Reserve chair, Janet Yellen, began talking openly about the possibility of doing that last year when it became obvious that the stock market was failing, and I speculated that the Fed actually started to do what they were talking about covertly through proxies so it wouldn’t show up on their own balance sheet.

Those proxies could have been there own member banks, but it turns out to have been other central banks. Their ability to get other central banks to do that for them could go like this. “We’ll buy $100 billion of your bonds if you agree to buy $100 billion worth of stocks in the US stock market to help us keep this thing up through the election season.” (Replace bonds with whatever else that central bank may need to see happen in the economy that it manages.)

The Swiss National Bank is one of the biggest offenders. During just the first three months of this year, it bought 17 billion dollars worth of U.S. stocks, and that brought the overall total that the Swiss National Bank is currently holding to more than $80 billion.

Have you ever wondered why shares of Apple just seem to keep going up and up and up?

Well, the Swiss National Bank bought almost 4 million shares of Apple during the months of January, February and March.

I wonder how many it bought last year when the stock market needed a recovery team. And that’s just one of the Fed’s friends, who was ready to rush in so as to suppress the Swiss franc. These banks are now following the Chinese model of crash protection. This is exactly what China’s central bank did on a massive scale to prop up its failing stock market and end the crash. It essentially nationalized many of its companies by soaking up all the slop in stocks.
Will central banks now let the rigged stock market crash?

If I was right about the Fed shoring up the stock market through proxies — and it appears now that I was — I also said all of last year that they would most likely only do that long enough to make sure Obama’s team won the election. If their recovery was failing as bad as I believed it was, I figured they’d do anything they could to continue to hold it up long enough to make get Team Obama (Hillary) elected. Trump, during his candidacy, was talking a lot about how Janet Yellen needed to go. So, you know the central bank would definitely want to keep Trump out of power. I noted how the Fed held mysterious closed-door emergency meetings last year, including one immediately called with the president and vice president.

Also, if it became clear to them that their recovery was going to fail, they wouldn’t want their globalist friend, Obama, to take the blame — being globalists themselves — and certainly wouldn’t want themselves to take the blame for a recovery that failed the moment they pulled the stimulator’s plug out of the wall. They’d need a scapegoat, and they would love for it to look like the crash was entirely the fault of anti-globalists. So, their private motto, should Trump win, would be “Trump for Chump” if they knew everything was hopeless (as I’ve been saying it is for a long time because their recovery plan was always a horrible solution).

Now that Trump has stocked his cabinet with Goldman Sachs Execs., however, Trump talks a completely different story about Yellen. She’s good now and valuable, and he says he’d like to see more loose monetary policy, so their reasons to eject him may be less pronounced; but, at the time, they didn’t know for sure if they could own him. And it may be all the more clear to them at this point that their recovery is going to fail as soon as they stop propping up stocks.

Now that it’s clear central banks have been buying enormous flows of US stocks, this could explain why the stock market paradoxically rose right after the Fed announced its rate hike in March. Mysteriously, stock prices made their third largest post-FOMC meeting move upward right after their announced rate hike, an event that would normally send stocks down. Even Goldman Sachs said they found the move mysterious. In fact, Goldman noted that stock prices rose as a result of the Fed’s quarter-point rate increase as they would normally be expected to rise had the Fed lowered its interest target by that much. Goldman’s analysis was that this was “almost certainly not” the central bank’s desired outcome.

Yes, “almost certainly not.” Perhaps I have an explanation for this mystery: The Fed appears now to have had friends in faraway places ready to backstop the market the second the decision was announced. I don’t know that’s what happened right at that moment, but we do know now that central banks have been directly supporting the US market this year and last with massive purchases. For their part, Goldman stayed with calling the event a mystery and said that the anomaly only meant the Fed would have all the more incentive to raise rates again at its next meeting.

I’m a little more suspicious than that and far less a friend of the Fed than Goldman, which practically owns the Fed. I always maintained that the Fed would discover it couldn’t raise rates twice without crashing it’s phony recovery. That, however, would not be true if they have friends of nearly infinite financial power waiting in the wings as the plunge protection team. I’m not as content as Goldman to leave it an unsolved mystery. So, I’m going to put out a hypothesis that goes from Goldman’s “almost certainly not” their intention to cause the market to rise to “Oh, I guess it was their intention”:

If you finally start to realize your recovery does not appear it is going to succeed — that it will never become capable of holding on its own — then you will really want the failure of your recovery to happen at a time when you can scapegoat someone else. One way to do that and not get blamed for the failure is to make sure you secretly give the market a huge jog with the right timing and severity to be sure it crashes on that person’s watch.

To do that clandestinely, have your friends lift the market upon your first rate hike that year. That way you make the rate hike when you know the market cannot fail because friends are ready to prop it up, and you prove to everyone you have full confidence in your recovery, even though the only thing you really have confidence in is your own confidence game. The fact that the market rises when everyone would have expected it to fall gives you lots of justification for another rate hike due to the market’s now “proven” resilience to rate hikes. Then, you make sure your friends don’t lift the market when you make your next rate hike. You’ll appear justified in making the hike, but the market will fall from a greater height because of its artificial lift from your friends with more force as it essentially corrects to what is now essentially a double rate hike (since the first one never got priced in) once the artificial lift is removed.

If that’s too jaundiced and conspiratorial for you, I’ll accept that criticism; but a year ago people probably thought I was overreaching in suggesting the Fed was propping up the stock market with direct purchases of stocks through proxies. While I cannot even yet prove the Fed had anything to do with US stocks being propped up that way, we do now know for certain they were propped up that way and to a very large degree. The Fed’s friends were extremely active last year in doing something that central banks, heretofore, were not known to do (outside of such moves within their own stock markets by Japan’s central bank and China’s):

Two weeks ago Bank of America caused a stir when it calculated that central banks (mostly the ECB & BoJ) have bought $1 trillion of financial assets just in the first four months of 2017, which amounts to $3.6 trillion annualized, “the largest CB buying on record.” (Zero Hedge)

We now know some of that enormous stimulus was spent on US stocks.
This time is different

I’m not saying, by the way, that the Fed has never purchased US stocks. We all know it bought lots of stock when it bailed out automakers and banks in the early days of the Great Recession. At the time, that was a peculiar thing to do, in and of itself; but the policy of soaking up slack in the stock market generally by buying perfectly sound companies as a form of economic stimulus is new in the US. In fact, it was so much something that simply wasn’t done (and should never be done) that the US central bank merely suggested it last year as a brave new approach should their recovery fail, should the economy need a new boost after quantitative easing had lost all of its utility due to diminishing returns and should we find ourselves in a recession. (Clearly proposed as a last-ditch effort.)

Well, having run that flag up the pole without hearing too much objection to the idea, is it too much to think that, when the market did fail badly last January, the Fed found other central banks willing to leap into that role for them? Why not? It was no secret that China’s move of that sort was the only thing that saved China’s stock market (though it also made it no longer a true market by effectively nationalizing many of China’s corporations).

Of course, the Federal Reserve could own stocks directly that are hiding within some broad category on its balance sheet as well as any stocks that it still holds from its direct bailouts. They have already begun talking about starting the unwind of their massive balance sheet this year. If that includes an unwind of stock purchases, it will certainly bring the market down in Trump’s first year. If the Fed isn’t planning a stock-market failure by conspiracy, the question remains, will the Fed allow the stock market to fall even if they are just becoming aware their recovery won’t hold?

While normally we would caution that the Fed may simply step in during any concerted selloff amid the broader market (catalyzed by the tech sector) as it has every single time in the past, this time it may let gravity take hold: after all, not only did the Fed caution during its last FOMC minutes that elevated asset prices have resulted in “increased vulnerabilities” and that “asset valuation pressures in some markets were notable” but as Goldman also warned recently, Yellen may be looking for just the right “shock” with which to reaffirm control over a market which is now interpreting a rate hike as an easing signa (see “Goldman Asks If Yellen Has Lost Control Of The Market, Warns Of Fed “Policy Shock”) (Zero Hedge)

Definitive Guide to Firearm Survival - Free Book (Ad)

On the conspiratorial side, that may just be the Fed’s best friend, Goldman Sachs, helping create the excuse the Fed needs for letting the market go. Why would Goldman want that? Well, so long as Goldman casts its bets against the market, they (and maybe this time their clients) could reap large rewards if the Fed lets the market go. They’d come out like champs.

If the Fed’s recovery plan failed too soon after Trump’s inauguration,however, people would not automatically blame him, and any conclusion people reach on their own is far stronger held. That’s how a confidence game works. If the market fell right after he was inaugurated, people would possibly see it as a mess he inherited. If the failure was seen as something baked in during the Obama administration, the Fed would have to own its own abject failure because the Obama administration reigned throughout the Fed’s recovery program. Moreover, if the Fed’s recovery failed during the Obama administration, Trump’s victory would be certain because America always votes it pocketbook.

For the Fed and the globalists to hope to dodge all blame, Trump would have to be in office long enough to do enough or fail enough for people to say, “This is clearly your fault.”

While that was all speculation when I was saying last year, it does seem to be the way things are playing out. And now that it is clear central banks have been soaking up massive amounts of US stocks, it’s a little more than just speculation.
Putting conspiracy aside, this market still looks like it is falling right when I predicted it would

Whether by conspiracy or sheer blindness and idiocy, the Fed is about to raise rates right into a falling economy. GDP in the first quarter went really soft, and I believe, contrary to what the Fed projects, second quarter GDP will come back negative unless great massaged. (In fact, first quarter GDP may have been negative if it were not such a government-manipulated number in the first place.)

One indicator has remained a stubbornly fail-safe marker of economic contraction: since the 1960, every time Commercial & Industrial loan balances have declined (or simply stopped growing), whether due to tighter loan supply or declining demand, a recession was already either in progress or would start soon…. As US loans have failed to post any material increase in over 30 consecutive weeks, suddenly the US finds itself on the verge of an ominous inflection point. After growing at a 7% Y/Y pace at the start of the year, which declined to 3% at the end of March and 2.6% at the end of April, the latest bank loan update from the Fed showed that the annual rate of increase in C&A loans is now down to just 1.6%, – the lowest since 2011. Should the current rate of loan growth deceleration persist – and there is nothing to suggest otherwise – the US will post its first negative loan growth, or rather loan contraction since the financial crisis, in roughly 4 to 6 weeks. (Zero Hedge)

Why is loan growth finally slowing again? Simple. GDP and loan growth are showing us something that a rigged stock market cannot and will not. The Fed started raising interest rates, and immediately applications for new home mortgages and auto loans started to subside, and the recovery started to falter … just as I said would happen more than a year ago. I’ve maintained all along that the Fed cannot raise interest rates (reduce its economic stimulus) without crashing its recovery (that, however, was without foreseeing when I first said it that they would prop things up via their potent proxies for a short time because that is simply moving central-bank stimulus from being overt to being covert).

Of course, another significant factor that helped the Fed raise interest rates in March was the fact that the financial market was already ahead of them. Interest was rising on its own purely out of speculation over the Trump effect, wherein markets were repositioning (or, at least, appeared to be) for the anticipated fiscal stimulus of Trump’s big tax cuts and the huge debts to be created by his infrastructure spending plans. (However, we also now know the market was rising due to enormous central bank stock purchases. No wonder the rally was so steep, but that now appears to be all unwinding.)

The Fed has a history of knee-capping its own recoveries by raising interest just as the economy is getting wobbly in the knees anyway, so we should not be surprised (even from a non-conspiratorial outlook) if the Fed fails to see its recovery is crashing all around it and raises rates directly into failure.

Just recall how Ben Break-the-banky failed to see the last recession when he was standing right in the middle of it. The Fed has a peculiar talent for that. Sometimes I think conspiracy rises as the most likely answer only because its so hard to be believe that people who are that smart can be that stupid. Yet, Gentle Ben was either supremely stupid in the area of his supposed greatest expertise, or was lying about the lack of recession, which often happens when people are conspiring. So, you choose — stupid or conspiratorial. Either one is still going to take this market down.

You can read more from David Haggith at his site The Great Recession Blog, where this article first appeared._________________'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.

The stock market is zooming this morning on the news that only 5.7 million people in Florida will have to do without air conditioning, hot showers, and Keurig mochachinos at dawn’s early light Monday, Sept 11, 2017. I’m mindful that the news cycle right after a hurricane goes kind of blank for a day or more as dazed and confused citizens venture out to assess the damage. For now, there is very little hard information on the Web waves. Does Key West still exist? Hard to tell. We’ll know more this evening.

The one-two punch of Harvey and Irma did afford the folks-in-charge of the nation’s affairs a sly opportunity to get rid of that annoying debt ceiling problem. This is the law that established a limit on how much debt the Federal Reserve could “buy” from the national government. Some of you may be thinking: buy debt? Why would anybody want to buy somebody’s debt? Well, you see, this is securitized debt, i.e. bonds issued by the US Treasury, which pay interest, and so there is the incentive to buy it. Anyway, there used to — back in the days when the real interest rate stayed positive after deducting the percent of running inflation. This is where the situation gets interesting.

The debt ceiling law supposedly set limits on how much bonded debt the government could issue (how much it could borrow) so it wouldn’t go hog wild spending money it didn’t have. Which is exactly what happened despite the debt limit because the “ceiling” got raised about a hundred times though the 20th century into the 21st so that the accumulated debt stands around $20 trillion.

Rational people recognize this $20 trillion for the supernatural scale of obligation it represents, and understand that it will never be paid back, so, what the hell? Why not just drop the pretense, but keep on working this racket of the government borrowing as much money was it wants, and the Federal Reserve creating that money (or “money”) on its computers to infinity. Seems to work so far.

Rational people would also suspect that at some point, something might have to give. For instance, the value of the dollars that the debt is issued in. If the value of dollars goes down, then the real value of the bonds issued in dollars goes down, and as that happens the many various holders of bonds already issued — individuals, pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds of foreign countries — will have a strong incentive to dump the bonds as fast as possible. Especially if backstage magic by the Fed and its handmaidens, the “primary dealer” banks, keeps working to suppress the interest rates of these bonds at all costs.

Would the Federal Reserve then vacuum up every bond that others are dumping on the market? They would certainly try. The Bank of Japan has been doing just that with its own government’s bonds to no apparent ill effect, though you kind of wonder what happens when a snake eating its own tail finally reaches its head. What’s left, exactly, after it eats that, too? My own guess would be three words: you go medieval. I mean literally. No more engines, electric lights, central heating….

In this land, we face a situation in which both the value of money and the cost of borrowing money would be, at last, completely detached from reality - reality being the real cost and value of all goods and services exchanged for money. Voila: a king-hell currency crisis and the disruption of trade on the most macro level imaginable. Also, surely, a massive disruption in government services, including social security and medicare, but extending way beyond that. And then we go medieval, too. The mule replaces the Ford F-150. And The New York Times finds something to write about besides Russia and trannies.

The Dow Jones industrial average plunged nearly 1,600 points Monday as two days of steep losses for U.S. stocks brought an end to a period of record setting calm in the market. / AP
Daily Mail
By: James Burton

A worldwide debt binge could trigger the next financial crisis, warns former Bank of England governor Lord King.

Households, companies and governments have borrowed ever-greater amounts of money since the global financial crisis, egged on by central bankers who cut interest rates to record lows.

But with inflation returning as growth picks up a decade on from the crash, investors are braced for steep rises in interest rates.

Fears over higher rates have sent financial markets into a tailspin in recent days, leading to the biggest one-day points fall of all time on Wall Street.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Given our evidence that China is shovelling new loans to companies with the least ability to pay them back, we think China is heading towards a debt crisis.

SHARE THIS QUOTE:

And experts are now warning that higher rates will push up the cost of servicing the world's mammoth debts, with potentially devastating consequences.

King said it was essential to tackle the global debt pile, which stands at £166 trillion ($321t), according to the Washington-based Institute of International Finance.

"The areas of weakness in the current system are really focused on the amount of debt that exists, not just in the US and UK but across the world," King said.

"Debt in the private sector relative to GDP is higher now than it was in 2007, and of course public debt is even higher still."

Although European and US banks have far larger reserves to draw on today, King warned banking disasters in less tightly regulated countries could create a global shock causing panic.

Lord Mervyn King was governor of the Bank of England as crisis hit
He warnsit is essential to tackle global debt pile which stands at £166 trillion
King says private sector debt to GDP is now hiigher than before crash

A worldwide debt binge could trigger the next financial crisis and tip Britain back into recession, former Bank of England governor Lord King has warned.

Households, companies and governments have borrowed ever-greater amounts of money since the Great Recession, egged on by central bankers who cut interest rates to record lows.

But with inflation returning as growth picks up a decade on from the crash, investors are braced for steep rises in interest rates.

Fears over higher rates have sent financial markets into a tailspin in recent days – leading to the biggest one-day points fall of all time on Wall Street.

Former Bank of England governor Lord King said it was essential to tackle the global debt pile, which stands at £166trillion

And experts are now warning that higher rates will push up the cost of servicing the world's mammoth debts, with potentially devastating consequences.

King said it was essential to tackle the global debt pile, which stands at £166trillion, according to the Washington-based Institute of International Finance.

'The areas of weakness in the current system are really focused on the amount of debt that exists, not just in the US and UK but across the world,' King said.

'Debt in the private sector relative to GDP is higher now than it was in 2007, and of course public debt is even higher still.'

Although European and US banks have far larger reserves to draw on today, he warned banking disasters in less tightly regulated countries could create a global shock causing panic.

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde also sounded the alarm last month and researchers believe China is a danger.

Benn Steil and Benjamin Della Rocca of the Council on Foreign Relations said a meltdown is rapidly approaching, saying: 'Given our evidence that China is shovelling new loans to companies with the least ability to pay them back, we think China is heading towards a debt crisis.'

Markets have swung wildly as investors grapple with the return of inflation as the global economy takes off and normality returns in the West after sluggish growth.

The recovery has been welcomed, but it is expected to spark a jump in wages and rising prices.

To keep this under control, banks will have to hike interest rates and Peter Tutton of Stepchange Debt Charity warned: 'Even a modest rise in interest rates could tip people who are just about managing into difficulties with mortgage payments and unsecured credit commitments.'

In a speech delivered Tuesday in Paris, billionaire investor George Soros warned that the world could be on the brink of another devastating financial crisis, as debt crises reemerge in Europe and a strengthening dollar pressures both the US's emerging- and developed-market rivals.

And Europe, with Italy dragging worries about the possible dissolution of the euro back to the forefront, won't be far behind. Political pressures like the dissolution of its transatlantic alliance with the US will eventually translate into economic harm. Presently, Europe is facing three pressing problems: The refugee crisis, the austerity policy that has hindered Europe's economic development, and territorial disintegration - not only Brexit, but the threat that countries like Italy might follow suit...

“Brexit is an immensely damaging process harmful to both sides,” the billionaire exclaimed.

Soros

But in the near-term, the US's decision to pull out of the Iran deal is straining Europe's alliance with its most important Western partner just as the strengthening dollar is constricting financial conditions around the world.

Until recently, it could have been argued that austerity is working: the European economy is slowly improving, and Europe must simply persevere. But, looking ahead, Europe now faces the collapse of the Iran nuclear deal and the destruction of the transatlantic alliance, which is bound to have a negative effect on its economy and cause other dislocations.

The strength of the dollar is already precipitating a flight from emerging-market currencies. We may be heading for another major financial crisis. The economic stimulus of a Marshall Plan for Africa and other parts of the developing world should kick in just at the right time. That is what has led me to put forward an out-of-the-box proposal for financing it.

Soros's warning comes as Italian 2Y bond yields shoot higher by the most on record:

Italian

Adding to the urgency, it is no longer a "figure of speech" to claim that the EU is in "existential danger," Soros said. It's an obvious reality.

“The EU is in an existential crisis. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong,” he said.

To escape the crisis, “it needs to reinvent itself.”

"The United States, for its part, has exacerbated the EU’s problems. By unilaterally withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, President Donald Trump has effectively destroyed the transatlantic alliance. This has put additional pressure on an already beleaguered Europe. It is no longer a figure of speech to say that Europe is in existential danger; it is the harsh reality."

The only way to prevent an all-out collapse, Soros explained, would be a 30 billion euro ($35.4 billion) "Marshall Plan" for Africa that Soros believes would help stem the flow of migrants into Europe, something that, Soros finally admits, is one of the biggest problems facing Europe. The EU, Soros believes, should use its "largely unused" borrowing authority to finance the plan.

“We may be heading for another major financial crisis,” Soros said explicitly.

The alternative, Soros claims, is further "territorial disintegration" of the EU as countries that have largely suffered as a result of the monetary union contemplate leaving. To prevent this, Soros says Europe
ZeroHedge
"Everything Has Gone Wrong": Soros Warns "Major" Financial Crisis Is Coming

Profile picture for user Tyler Durden
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/30/2018 - 04:58
TwitterFacebookRedditEmailPrint
In a speech delivered Tuesday in Paris, billionaire investor George Soros warned that the world could be on the brink of another devastating financial crisis, as debt crises reemerge in Europe and a strengthening dollar pressures both the US's emerging- and developed-market rivals.

And Europe, with Italy dragging worries about the possible dissolution of the euro back to the forefront, won't be far behind. Political pressures like the dissolution of its transatlantic alliance with the US will eventually translate into economic harm. Presently, Europe is facing three pressing problems: The refugee crisis, the austerity policy that has hindered Europe's economic development, and territorial disintegration - not only Brexit, but the threat that countries like Italy might follow suit...

“Brexit is an immensely damaging process harmful to both sides,” the billionaire exclaimed.

Soros

But in the near-term, the US's decision to pull out of the Iran deal is straining Europe's alliance with its most important Western partner just as the strengthening dollar is constricting financial conditions around the world.

Until recently, it could have been argued that austerity is working: the European economy is slowly improving, and Europe must simply persevere. But, looking ahead, Europe now faces the collapse of the Iran nuclear deal and the destruction of the transatlantic alliance, which is bound to have a negative effect on its economy and cause other dislocations.

The strength of the dollar is already precipitating a flight from emerging-market currencies. We may be heading for another major financial crisis. The economic stimulus of a Marshall Plan for Africa and other parts of the developing world should kick in just at the right time. That is what has led me to put forward an out-of-the-box proposal for financing it.

Soros's warning comes as Italian 2Y bond yields shoot higher by the most on record:

Italian

Adding to the urgency, it is no longer a "figure of speech" to claim that the EU is in "existential danger," Soros said. It's an obvious reality.

“The EU is in an existential crisis. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong,” he said.

To escape the crisis, “it needs to reinvent itself.”

"The United States, for its part, has exacerbated the EU’s problems. By unilaterally withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, President Donald Trump has effectively destroyed the transatlantic alliance. This has put additional pressure on an already beleaguered Europe. It is no longer a figure of speech to say that Europe is in existential danger; it is the harsh reality."

The only way to prevent an all-out collapse, Soros explained, would be a 30 billion euro ($35.4 billion) "Marshall Plan" for Africa that Soros believes would help stem the flow of migrants into Europe, something that, Soros finally admits, is one of the biggest problems facing Europe. The EU, Soros believes, should use its "largely unused" borrowing authority to finance the plan.

“We may be heading for another major financial crisis,” Soros said explicitly.

The alternative, Soros claims, is further "territorial disintegration" of the EU as countries that have largely suffered as a result of the monetary union contemplate leaving. To prevent this, Soros says Europe must acknowledge and address the flaws of the euro system. Perhaps the most glaring of which is that the euro created an entrenched two-tiered system of debtors and creditors.

I personally regarded the EU as the embodiment of the idea of the open society. It was a voluntary association of equal states that banded together and sacrificed part of their sovereignty for the common good. The idea of Europe as an open society continues to inspire me.

But since the financial crisis of 2008, the EU seems to have lost its way. It adopted a program of fiscal retrenchment, which led to the euro crisis and transformed the eurozone into a relationship between creditors and debtors. The creditors set the conditions that the debtors had to meet, yet could not meet. This created a relationship that was neither voluntary nor equal – the very opposite of the credo on which the EU was based.

As some will remember, Soros Fund Management - the family office that manages Soros's money, which he has mostly dedicated to his "Open Society" network of NGOs - closed most of its long-EM positions after President Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. Of course, where Soros sees danger, others see opportunity. For example, Mark Mobius "un-retired" last month to open a fund that he hopes will take advantage of opportunities amid the EM carnage, as analysts continue to see EM as the area that's most vulnerable to a re-pricing in USD.

* * *

Read the speech in full below:

The European Union is mired in an existential crisis. For the past decade, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. How did a political project that has underpinned Europe’s postwar peace and prosperity arrive at this point?

In my youth, a small band of visionaries led by Jean Monnet transformed the European Coal and Steel Community first into the European Common Market and then the EU. People of my generation were enthusiastic supporters of the process.

I personally regarded the EU as the embodiment of the idea of the open society. It was a voluntary association of equal states that banded together and sacrificed part of their sovereignty for the common good. The idea of Europe as an open society continues to inspire me.

But since the financial crisis of 2008, the EU seems to have lost its way. It adopted a program of fiscal retrenchment, which led to the euro crisis and transformed the eurozone into a relationship between creditors and debtors. The creditors set the conditions that the debtors had to meet, yet could not meet. This created a relationship that was neither voluntary nor equal – the very opposite of the credo on which the EU was based.

As a result, many young people today regard the EU as an enemy that has deprived them of jobs and a secure and promising future. Populist politicians exploited the resentments and formed anti-European parties and movements.

Then came the refugee influx of 2015. At first, most people sympathized with the plight of refugees fleeing political repression or civil war, but they didn’t want their everyday lives disrupted by a breakdown in social services. And soon they became disillusioned by the failure of the authorities to cope with the crisis.

When that happened in Germany, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) rapidly gained strength, making it the country’s largest opposition party. Italy has suffered from a similar experience recently, and the political repercussions have been even more disastrous: the anti-European Five Star Movement and League parties almost took over the government. The situation has been deteriorating ever since. Italy now faces elections in the midst of political chaos.

Indeed, the whole of Europe has been disrupted by the refugee crisis. Unscrupulous leaders have exploited it even in countries that have accepted hardly any refugees. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán based his reelection campaign on falsely accusing me of planning to flood Europe, Hungary included, with Muslim refugees.

Orbán is now posing as the defender of his version of a Christian Europe, one that challenges the values on which the EU was based. He is trying to take over the leadership of the Christian Democratic parties which form the majority in the European Parliament.

The United States, for its part, has exacerbated the EU’s problems. By unilaterally withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, President Donald Trump has effectively destroyed the transatlantic alliance. This has put additional pressure on an already beleaguered Europe. It is no longer a figure of speech to say that Europe is in existential danger; it is the harsh reality.

What Can Be Done?

The EU faces three pressing problems: the refugee crisis; the austerity policy that has hindered Europe’s economic development; and territorial disintegration, as exemplified by Brexit. Bringing the refugee crisis under control may be the best place to start.

I have always advocated that the allocation of refugees within Europe should be entirely voluntary. Member states should not be forced to accept refugees they don’t want, and refugees should not be forced to settle in countries where they don’t want to go.

This fundamental principle ought to guide Europe’s migration policy. Europe must also urgently reform the Dublin Regulation, which has put an unfair burden on Italy and other Mediterranean countries, with disastrous political consequences.

The EU must protect its external borders but keep them open for lawful migrants. Member states, in turn, must not close their internal borders. The idea of a “fortress Europe” closed to political refugees and economic migrants not only violates European and international law; it is also totally unrealistic.

Europe wants to extend a helping hand toward Africa and other parts of the developing world by offering substantial assistance to democratically inclined regimes. This is the right approach, as it would enable these governments to provide education and employment to their citizens, who would then be less likely to make the often dangerous journey to Europe.

By strengthening democratic regimes in the developing world, such an EU-led “Marshall Plan for Africa” would also help to reduce the number of political refugees. European countries could then accept migrants from these and other countries to meet their economic needs through an orderly process. In this way, migration would be voluntary both on the part of the migrants and the receiving states.

Present-day reality, however, falls substantially short of this ideal. First, and most importantly, the EU still lacks a unified migration policy. Each member state has its own policy, which is often at odds with the interests of other states.

Second, the main objective of most European countries is not to foster democratic development in Africa and elsewhere, but to stem the flow of migrants. This diverts a large part of the available funds to dirty deals with dictators, bribing them to prevent migrants from passing through their territory or to use repressive methods to prevent their citizens from leaving. In the long run, this will generate more political refugees.

Third, there is a woeful shortage of financial resources. A meaningful Marshall Plan for Africa would require at least €30 billion ($35.4 billion) annually for a number of years. EU member states could contribute only a small fraction of this amount. So, where could the money come from?

It is important to recognize that the refugee crisis is a European problem requiring a European solution. The EU has a high credit rating, and its borrowing capacity is largely unused. When should that capacity be put to use if not in an existential crisis? Historically, national debt always grew in times of war. Admittedly, adding to the national debt runs counter to the prevailing orthodoxy that advocates austerity; but austerity is itself a contributing factor to the crisis in which Europe finds itself.

Until recently, it could have been argued that austerity is working: the European economy is slowly improving, and Europe must simply persevere. But, looking ahead, Europe now faces the collapse of the Iran nuclear deal and the destruction of the transatlantic alliance, which is bound to have a negative effect on its economy and cause other dislocations.

The strength of the dollar is already precipitating a flight from emerging-market currencies. We may be heading for another major financial crisis. The economic stimulus of a Marshall Plan for Africa and other parts of the developing world should kick in just at the right time. That is what has led me to put forward an out-of-the-box proposal for financing it.

Without going into the details, I want to point out that the proposal contains an ingenious device, a special-purpose vehicle, that would enable the EU to tap financial markets at a very advantageous rate without incurring a direct obligation for itself or for its member states; it also offers considerable accounting benefits. Moreover, although it is an innovative idea, it has already been used successfully in other contexts, namely general-revenue municipal bonds in the US and so-called surge funding to combat infectious diseases.

But my main point is that Europe needs to do something drastic in order to survive its existential crisis. Simply put, the EU needs to reinvent itself.

This initiative needs to be a genuinely grassroots effort. The transformation of the Coal and Steel Community into the European Union was a top-down initiative and it worked wonders. But times have changed. Ordinary people feel excluded and ignored. Now we need a collaborative effort that combines the top-down approach of the European institutions with the bottom-up initiatives that are necessary to engage the electorate.

Of the three pressing problems, I have addressed two. That leaves territorial disintegration, exemplified by Brexit. It is an immensely damaging process, harmful to both sides. But a lose-lose proposition could be converted into a win-win situation.

Divorce will be a long process, probably taking more than five years – a seeming eternity in politics, especially in revolutionary times like the present. Ultimately, it is up to the British people to decide what they want to do, but it would be better if they came to a decision sooner rather than later. That is the goal of an initiative called Best for Britain, which I support. This initiative fought for, and helped to win, a meaningful parliamentary vote on a measure that includes the option of not leaving before Brexit is finalized.

Britain would render Europe a great service by rescinding Brexit and not creating a hard-to-fill hole in the European budget. But its citizens must express support by a convincing margin in order to be taken seriously by Europe. That is Best for Britain’s aim in engaging the electorate.

The economic case for remaining an EU member is strong, but it has become clear only in the last few months, and it will take time to sink in. During that time, the EU needs to transform itself into an organization that countries like Britain would want to join, in order to strengthen the political case.

Such a Europe would differ from the current arrangements in two key respects. First, it would clearly distinguish between the EU and the eurozone. Second, it would recognize that the euro has many unsolved problems, which must not be allowed to destroy the European project.

The eurozone is governed by outdated treaties that assert that all EU member states are expected to adopt the euro if and when they qualify. This has created an absurd situation where countries like Sweden, Poland, and the Czech Republic, which have made it clear that they have no intention to join, are still described and treated as “pre-ins.”

The effect is not purely cosmetic. The existing framework has converted the EU into an organization in which the eurozone constitutes the inner core, with the other members relegated to an inferior position. There is a hidden assumption at work here, namely that, while various member states may be moving at different speeds, they are all heading to the same destination. This ignores the reality that a number of EU member countries have explicitly rejected the EU’s goal of “ever closer union.”

This goal should be abandoned. Instead of a multi-speed Europe, the goal should be a “multi-track Europe” that allows member states a wider variety of choices. This would have a far-reaching beneficial effect. Currently, attitudes toward cooperation are negative: member states want to reassert their sovereignty rather than surrender more of it. But if cooperation produced positive results, sentiment might improve, and some objectives, like defense, that are currently best pursued by coalitions of the willing might attract universal participation.

Harsh reality may force member states to set aside their national interests in the interest of preserving the EU. That is what French President Emmanuel Macron urged in the speech he delivered in Aachen when he received the Charlemagne Prize, and his proposal was cautiously endorsed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is painfully aware of the opposition she faces at home. If Macron and Merkel succeeded, despite all the obstacles, they would follow in the footsteps of Monnet and his small band of visionaries. But that narrow group needs to be replaced by a large upsurge of bottom-up pro-European initiatives. I and my network of Open Society Foundations will do everything we can to help those initiatives...._________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

House prices falling by a third, interest rates soaring by more than 4% and the economy going into recession – it’s the prediction from the Bank of England on what will happen in the event of a no deal Brexit. BOE boss Mark Carney made the dire warning today that there is an ‘uncomfortably high’ risk that Britain will leave the European Union without a deal and it could have devastating consequences. After his comments, the pound sterling plunged to an 11-day low against the dollar. The Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney said a no deal Brexit is ‘highly undesirable’ (Picture: EPA) Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Carney said that the event of no deal was ‘highly undesirable’ and that Britain and the EU should do everything possible to avoid it. ‘I think the possibility of a no deal is uncomfortably high at this moment,’ he said. Man leaves £5 on ambulance windscreen to thank paramedics for blocking drive ‘Our job is to look at what could go wrong and what we could do to make sure that the bank is in a robust position so it lessens the impact of a no deal Brexit. ‘We have made sure that banks have the capital, the liquidity that they need and we have the contingency plans in place if there were to be a no deal Brexit.’ Sorry, this video isn't available any more. Mark Carney's no deal warning Bank of England boss Mark Carney (Picture: PA) The Bank of England governer says the financial system and banks will be ready for that ‘undesirable’ scenario, which could include: Commercial and residential property prices going down by more than a third interest rates soaring unemployment increasing to 9% the economy contracting by 4% Mr Carney did add that the UK could ‘withstand’ a no deal scenario and said: ‘We have prepared the financial institutions and banks for a very difficult situation. ‘We should have a transition, it’s in every industry’s interest. ‘We’ll take the two years. We’ll make it enough.’ The BOE governor also said people should still be able to afford their mortgages because of checks put in place. House prices could slump and unemployment rise, the Bank of England boss warned (Picture: PA) ‘More than half of mortgages in this country are fixed rate mortgages,’ he said. ‘When you take out a mortgage, you have to pass an affordability test, and you have to be able to pay a mortgage at 7%. ‘It’s something we put in place so that if costs were to go up, people would be able to meet those mortgages.’

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned of “large challenges” ahead “to prevent a second Great Depression” in a report released in October.

But is the world really close to the next financial crash?

The economy is typical unpredictable but there are several factors in recent months which have sparked particular volatility in the global market.

Here Express.co.uk looks at some of these variables and what they could mean for the world economy.

PRICE OF GOLD:

Adrian Ash, head of research at BullionVault, said there is a correlation between the price of gold rising when the stock market is underperforming.

The price of gold in British pounds has rocketed by 23.74 percent, or £5.87 per gram, over the course of five years, according to online dealer bullionbypost.co.uk.

In terms of the euro, the price of gold has gone up by 16.63 percent over the last half a decade, with a change of €4.93 per gram.

RELATED ARTICLES
FINANCIAL CRASH WARNING: World economy 'VULNERABLE to SECOND Great ...
Global markets in MELTDOWN: Stocks plunged into CHAOS
The picture is not so positive for the price of the yellow metal in US dollars, with the cost plunging by 1.86 percent over five years to be down $0.75 per gram.

This week has seen the price of gold in US dollars inch up on a weaker currency, sparked by concerns about global economic growth.

For UK investors and savers, gold’s gains since the start of October mirror the 7 percent drop in the FTSE almost exactly, Mr Ash explained.

He told Express.co.uk: “This could be a warning that years of stock-market losses lie ahead.

“Gold tends to do well when other assets do badly, most especially the stock market."

“That's what drove prices higher during the DotCom Crash and then the financial crisis.

PROMOTED STORY
“It's what also spurred prices higher on 2016's Brexit referendum shock.”

global financial crash
Global financial crash: Is the world near the next financial crisis? (Image: GETTY)
New York Stock Exchange on November 20
Global financial crash: The New York Stock Exchange on November 20 (Image: GETTY)
DOW JONES:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen by almost 1,000 points over the last two days alone.

In fact, October 2018 was among the most volatile months in 118 years for the US stock index, Fox News reported.

But why is the Dow Jones so crucial to the wider global market?

The Dow Jones is price-weighted, meaning stocks with higher share prices are given a greater weight in the index, according to investopedia.com.

Goldman Sachs chief US equity strategist David Kostin said to CNBC: "Put simply, stocks have already started to price in the risk of an economic slowdown.”

Kane Thomas-Mason, a trader with Spreadex, told Express.co.uk: “From a technical perspective the recent double top suggests that we might see a short term down trend and prices don’t look set to break the resistance level around the 26700 mark.

“In addition to this, the majority of technical indicators, including the RSI and MACD, are offering strong sell signals.

However any progress in trade talks between the US and China at the G-20 summit in December could see a trend reversal and prices climb above this point, according to Ms Thomas-Mason.

She said: “The results of this meeting between Trump and Xi will be key and could have a great impact on markets globally.”

Bitcoin was worth more than $14,000 in January but since then, digital assets have lost close to $700 billion of their market value.

This week saw Bitcoin plummet to $4,385.52, marking the first time in more than a year the cryptocurrency has dropped below $5,000.

The cryptocurrency’s decline has also caused BTC rivals including Ether, Litecoin and XRP to join the decline.

Nigel Green, founder and CEO of deVere Group, claimed the fall in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could have a wider impact on the global market, with a tumble having the potential knock-on effect on stocks.

He told Express.co.uk: “This turbulence is likely to have a wider effect on global stocks as cryptocurrencies are alternative assets.”

Mr Green blamed the decline in cryptocurrencies on a combination of uncertainty regarding the Bitcoin Cash hard fork and the growing regulatory scrutiny in the US.

However, he maintained the future is still positive for Bitcoin as he described the cryptocurrency as “the future of money”.

He added: “This was then exacerbated by some investors following ‘the herd’.

“Bitcoin has made-up some of its losses on Wednesday. Whilst it remains unclear if the floor has been found, a long-term upward trajectory for the wider crypto sector can be expected.

“Indeed, the market, I believe, will reach at least 5,000 percent above its present valuation in the next 10 years.

Investors have raised concerns over the potential of rising US interest rates over the next few months, with expectations of further increases pushing up bond yields.

The global market was left rattled over the inflationary impact of rising rates, as stocks in Asia in particular saw a slump in October as investors began to sell.

The Federal Reserve is anticipated for another hike in December, on top of the three other increases already planned in 2018.

But the biggest critic of soaring rates has been US President Donald Trump, who branded the Federal Reserve as “crazy” in a scathing rant.

The Fed snapped back at Mr Trump, claiming the US economy is strong enough that efforts to encourage borrowing and boost economic activity is no longer necessary.

Matt O'Brien, economics report at The Washington Post, said US interest rates “are starting to get a little high by our post-crisis ones”.

Longer-term interest rates show what markets think short-term interest rates are going to average over that time, Mr O’Brien commented.

He added: “Plus a little extra to make up for the risk that inflation ends up being higher than people thought it would.

“So when long-term rates are lower than short-term ones, what’s known as an ‘inverted yield curve’, it’s telling us that markets think the Federal Reserve is going to have to stop raising rates and start cutting them in the near future.

“And when would it do that? Easy: when it’s trying to fight a recession.”

UNPREDICTABLE political climates in countries including Britain, the United States and Germany pose the biggest threat to the global economy, according to a panel of experts, as they warned the danger signs of an imminent downturn - and possibly a crash - are already on display.

Increasing profit warnings from large corporations, reduced growth forecasts and a tense mood on the stock markets all point towards an economic slump, the group said. And while they identified a series of scenarios which could trigger a worldwide financial crisis, they warned the uncertain political situation in many of the world’s largest economies poses the most immediate threat. Writing in the German business newspaper Handelsblatt, the group of veteran finance writers said traditional alliances, like the ties between the UK and US, would be tested in the event of a crash.

RELATED ARTICLES
Italy GOADS Brussels over budget plan as Eurozone crisis escalates
World markets on brink: Economic crisis to hit US, Germany, China
They wrote: “At the moment, the biggest risk to the world economy is politics itself - or rather, the fact that cooperation among the main economies, such as those that took place during the financial crisis, can no longer be taken for granted.”

The group pointed to US President Donald Trump’s weakened position following the midterm elections this week, Theresa May’s precarious role during the Brexit talks and Angela Merkel’s shock announcement that she should not stand for re-election as Germany’s Chancellor as some of the factors behind the uncertain climate.

On Mr Trump, they warned the midterm results could prove to be the catalyst for even more economic uncertainty.

PROMOTED STORY
Tuesday’s vote saw the President’s Republican party maintain control over the Senate but lose its majority in the House of Representatives.

Financial crisis warning
Financial crisis: Unstable political climates across the world could trigger a major crash (Image: GETTY IMAGES)
Theresa May and Angela Merkel
Traditional allies may not work together in the uncertain political climate, the group warned (Image: REUTERS)
RELATED ARTICLES
Imran Khan warns of ‘very difficult’ situation for Pakistan economy
Turkey financial crisis: Inflation SOARS to 25 percent
Democrats in the House have pledged to provide a check on Mr Trump but could bring his legislative agenda to a halt if they choose to.

The group, which includes Dr Jens Muenchath, Christian Rickens and Daniel Schäfer, wrote: “In the best case, the Democratic delegates will slow down the erratic Trump.

“In the worst case, the opposition of President and Congress will cause even more back and forth and thus uncertainty.”

On Brexit, they warned Mrs May’s precarious position attempting to maintain unity in her Conservative Party while negotiating an exit deal which can win the support of enough MPs to pass through the House of Commons added to growing uncertainty in European markets.

The panel said Italy, now run by “hard to predict populists” also posed a major threat with its budget proposals.

The newly elected government in Rome hopes to increase borrowing to make good on its campaign promises but the spending plans fly in the face of EU rules and would increase debt in the cash-strapped country.

Donald Trump
Donald Trump's unpredictable nature is increasing uncertainly, the panel said (Image: EPA)
Theresa May
Theresa May's uncertain position is a risk to the world economy, the group said (Image: GETTY IMAGES)
RELATED ARTICLES
European financial system 'NOT in a good shape' after global CRASH
Italy's budget chaos risks second credit crunch, expert warns
They said a financial crash in Italy would put the Mediterranean county would be well beyond the help of bailouts meaning a “state bankruptcy followed by a debt cut would be almost inevitable”.

And they warned Germany’s Angela Merkel, “who is regarded worldwide as a tireless and influential mediator in crisis situations”, is politically weakened after she revealed she would not stand for re-election.

The group added: “It is questionable whether, in a new crisis in the euro area, for example, she will still have the authority to force the leaders of other states to cooperate at the negotiating table.”

The trade war has is having an impact on global markets (Image: GETTY)
Germany, Japan, South Korea, the US and China are among those who will be hit hardest next year, according to the Moody’s report.

Global economic growth will slow in 2019 and 2020 to just under 2.9 percent, down from an estimated 3.3 percent in 2018 and 2019, Moody’s said.

And the analysis has also suggested there is no end in sight to the disagreement, which could continue “for some time” – a concern previously expressed by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, who on Tuesday reiterated his concerns about the “stupid” dispute.

PROMOTED STORY
The two superpowers have been at loggerheads ever since US President Donald Trump slapped punishing new tariffs of 25 percent and 10 percent respectively on Chinese steel and aluminium imports, triggering Beijing to respond with levies of its own on American exports.

RELATED ARTICLES
US-China trade war: Xi Jinping in SLY DIG at Donald Trump
Midterm elections 2018: Trump could INTENSIFY trade war with China
Mr Trump has shown no signs of backing down on the issue, and warned on October 30 he had $267 billion in additional tariffs ready if the two countries failed to reach a deal on trade – although he also hinted this was a possibility.

Moody’s said the “geopolitical frictions” between US and China would “likely persist for some time”.

The slowdown is likely to have a negative impact not only on China and the US, but also on other open economies, especially Germany, Japan and South Korea, it said.

Growth in advanced economies will slow but remain solid next year, it predicted – but G20 emerging markets growth will be weak.

Xi Jinping Donald Trump
The trade war between the US and China will cause collateral damage, Moody's has warned (Image: GETTY)
Jack Ma
Jack Ma has called the trade dispute "stupid" (Image: GETTY)
As such, Moody’s also said the dispute would weigh on global trade growth and reshape trade flows and supply chains.

It also suggested the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) - a new trade deal to replace the North American Free Trade Deal (NAFTA) which Mr Trump has been a vehement critic of - would be ratified next year.

China’s top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, has said a planned meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Mr Trump at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires this month will be of great significance to both sides.

Speaking during a meeting with former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who is on a visit to the country, Yi said China and the United States can and should appropriately resolve their trade dispute through talks.

RELATED ARTICLES
US-China TRADE war: Trump slaps BAN on Chinese chipmaker
Dow Jones: US stocks UP amid signs of China trade war truce
Chinese exports
China's exports to the US and the rest of the world grew more than expected in October (Image: GETTY)
Trade war is the most stupid thing in this world
Jack Ma
Speaking at a conference in Shanghai organised by the Chinese government, Alibaba co-founder Mr Ma, who was recently confirmed as China’s richest man, said: "Trade war is the most stupid thing in this world.

"Nobody can stop the free trade.”

In an thinly veiled criticism of Mr Trump’s approach, he suggested the purpose of trade should be to promote peace and communication rather than conflict, branding the rise of “winner-takes-all” protectionist measures promoted by Mr Trump as misguided.

Mr Ma met Mr Trump in New York shortly after his 2016 Presidential election victory, pleading to create one million new US jobs by helping small businesses sell their products in China.

However, the plan has now been shelved, with Mr Ma saying in September: "This promise was on the basis of friendly China-US cooperation and reasonable bilateral trade relations, but the current situation has already destroyed that basis.

"This promise can't be completed."

Research by UBS has revealed a 30 percent drop in imports of products listed as being subject to a package of tariffs imposed by the US Government on July 6.

It was too early to judge the impact of a further round of tariffs totally $200 million which were imposed on September 24.

By Helen Cahill, Financial Mail On Sunday
21:01, 08 Dec 2018
The City is gearing up for a manic night on Tuesday following the vote on Brexit
Banks, stockbrokers and advisers are braced for a night of chaos
The outcome of the vote is due after the London stock market closes on Tuesday
City traders are gearing up for a caffeine-fuelled all-nighter as investors grapple with the fallout from the crucial vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

ADVERTISEMENT
Banks, stockbrokers and advisers are braced for a night of chaos on trading floor.

The vote will be held late on Tuesday, with the outcome due after the London stock market closes.

Pressure: Barclays and JP Morgan have both called on bankers to stay late into the night to make sure clients can continue to trade stock futures and currency as the result comes in +5
Pressure: Barclays and JP Morgan have both called on bankers to stay late into the night to make sure clients can continue to trade stock futures and currency as the result comes in
Bank of England issues recession warning over no-deal Brexit
Loaded: 0%Progress: 0%00:00
Play
Current Time 0:00
/
Duration Time 0:00
Fullscreen
Barclays and JP Morgan have both called on bankers to stay late into the night to make sure clients can continue to trade stock futures and currency as the result comes in.

If events drag on to the early hours, JP Morgan’s teams in the New York office will take over from London colleagues.

In Barclays’ investment bank, traders will be in the office earlier on Tuesday to prepare ahead of the vote, while analysts and economists will be on standby to brief clients.

Currency trading will be the focus overnight as markets deliver a verdict on what the vote means for the UK economy.

1
shares
RELATED ARTICLES
Markets plunge in global sell off: FTSE sinks to a two-year low after arrest of Huawei boss sparks trade war panic
Deal or no deal: The UK shares to back for a Brexit agreement bounce - or to defend your wealth if there's deadlock
Brexit-proof your finances: Prices might be set to go up but here's eight easy steps you can take that should save you hundreds - deal or no-deal!
Brexit Plan B: How are supermarkets preparing for a 'no deal' and is there really a risk that fresh food will rot at the borders while shelves run dry?
One source at a major spreadbetting firm, which allows individual investors to bet on market movements, said last night they would be ordering pizzas to keep staff from going hungry through the night. They have also booked out rooms at a hotel next door so traders can take short naps during quieter periods.

Traders at Samuel & Co Trading have even set up a mini golf course to keep staff entertained and will bring sleeping bags into the office.

On Wednesday, domestic stocks will take centre stage as traders analyse the political fallout, the chances of a no-deal Brexit or even a General Election, which might lead to a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn.

How will the Brexit deal vote affect business? A run-down of the most likely scernarios +5
How will the Brexit deal vote affect business? A run-down of the most likely scernarios
Carney: 'British businesses are unprepared for a no-deal Brexit'
Loaded: 0%Progress: 0%00:00
Play
Current Time 0:00
/
Duration Time 0:00
Fullscreen
Investment platforms such as AJ Bell and Hargreaves Lansdown are gearing up for a spike in online traffic when the market opens on Wednesday.

Danny Cox, of Hargreaves Lansdown, said: ‘We are increasing staffing levels on our helpdesk and support functions on the Wednesday morning by around 40 per cent to cater for what could be a very busy opening period of trading.’

Away from the trading floor, bankers and consultants are teeing-up to help clients plan for the weeks ahead.

Lloyds bankers will be staying late on Tuesday and coming in early on Wednesday to monitor events and take check-in calls with any concerned clients.

ADVERTISEMENT

Accounting giant PwC is hosting internal briefings to make sure its consultants are up to date on events so they can advise clients, both in the UK and abroad.

While PwC hasn’t made any specific predictions about how the vote will pan out, the organisation has spent time scenario planning so that it is prepared for all possible outcomes and can inform clients through webcasts, briefing notes and newsletters sent out as events unfold.

James Stewart, KPMG’s head of Brexit, said there had been a significant pick-up in calls in recent weeks as clients try to understand what the vote means for their businesses.

Stewart added: ‘We are seeing much more client activity around Brexit over the past two weeks. That’s a mix of small businesses who have only just realised they need to act, and larger businesses who are activating their plans.’

STOCK MARKET WATCH LIST

Ted Baker boss Ray Kelvin hit the headlines when the retailer appointed a law firm to investigate its ‘hugging culture’, but hedge funds aren’t showing his company’s shares much love.

They were already betting against the fashion brand, but raised their short positions in the FTSE 250 firm on Monday after the hugging scandal.

Data from analyst IHS Markit shows a notable increase in short interest positions from 6.6 per cent on Friday last week to 7.4 per cent on Monday in a wager worth about £50 million. Short-sellers, who in this case include New York-headquartered BlackRock and London-based Marshall Wace, borrow shares, sell them and then buy them back at what they hope is a lower price, pocketing the difference in the process.

Just minutes before the markets closed on Friday, the company revealed that Kelvin was to take a ‘leave of absence’ while the allegations are investigated.

The share price took a sharp dive, but could have further to go when markets reopen tomorrow morning, meaning that the short-sellers could cash in again.

Apart from its own shareholders, the other main victim of Thomas Cook’s recent woes has been rival TUI.

Thomas Cook blamed the warm UK summer for stopping people travelling abroad in search of sun. But scribblers at City broker Bernstein think TUI is a very different business with cruises and hotels that are less reliant on one or two crucial seasons.

They reckon TUI’s annual results on Thursday could kick-start the shares after a slump of nearly 40 per cent since May.

Bernstein says the shares are so cheap that any new investors would be getting TUI’s tour division for free.

If Purplebricks, the so-called hybrid estate agent, was one of the shares to own last year after a stunning stock market performance, then it was one to sell in 2018.

The shares tanked by about 60 per cent amid a slowdown in the UK market, even though it expanded abroad.

Rival Emoov, which earlier this year merged with Sarah Beeny’s Tepilo and online lettings agency Urban, went into administration last week, underlining the scale of the challenge for online agents.

Purplebricks reveals first-half results on Thursday. Could it perhaps decide to snap up Emoov’s property listings which are up for grabs?_________________--
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.comhttp://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."

A new survey shows that business growth in the eurozone has hit a four-year low in December amid concerns about a global trade war and the recent violent anti-government protests in France.

The survey, conducted by data firm IHS Markit, showed Friday that the composite eurozone PMI fell to 51.3 points from 52.7 points in November. However, a reading above 50 points indicates business is still growing.

According to IHS Markit, new business inflows almost stalled, job creation slipped to a two-year low and business optimism deteriorated.

"An undercurrent of slowing economic growth was exacerbated by protests in France and ongoing weak demand for autos," said the firm.
The IHS Markit's survey for France indicated that business in the country has flipped into reverse, with the index plunging to 49.3 in December from 54.2 in November.

Thousands of demonstrators wearing yellow vests have been gathering in major French cities since November 17 to initially protest President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial fuel tax hike — which he later dropped — and the high costs of living in France.

French authorities earlier said more than 1,700 protesters had been arrested and that 200 people, including 17 police forces, had been injured in confrontations during the protests.

Read more:

Police heavily deployed to contain protests across France
Over 1,000 arrests as 'Yellow Vests' protests continue
France in flames as 'yellow vests' hit streets despite Macron concessions
"While some of the slowdown reflected disruptions to business and travel arising from the 'yellow vest' protests in France, the weaker picture also reflects growing evidence that the underlying rate of economic growth has slowed across the euro area as a whole," IHS Markit's Chief Business Economist Chris Williamson said.

"Companies are worried about the global economic and political climate, with trade wars and Brexit adding to increased political tensions within the euro area," he added.
Williamson noted that the data point to a weak economic expansion of 0.3 percent in the final quarter of 2018 for the eurozone.

He said data in December alone indicate that GDP growth is slowing to a 0.1 percent rate and forward-looking information, including orders and sentiment, show demand growth is stalling

The survey results come a day after the European Central Bank announced that it would halt its €2.6tn stimulus program in January despite concerns that the eurozone is poised to slow down over the next couple of years.

Mario Draghi, the ECB boss, warned that rising uncertainty had forced the bank to downgrade its outlook for the currency bloc next year and the effects would continue to be felt in 2020.

13 December 2018
Share this with Facebook Share this with Messenger Share this with Twitter Share this with Email Share
Mario DraghiImage copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image caption
European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi
The European Central Bank has confirmed it is ending its huge net asset purchase programme to stimulate the eurozone economy this month.
The ECB has stopped its bond-buying scheme, worth €30bn a month, despite a recent slowdown in the bloc's recovery.
The move, first announced in June, is a big step towards unwinding the policies brought in to stabilise the eurozone in the wake of the financial crisis.
The ECB said it was keeping its main interest rate on hold at zero per cent.
The ECB began its asset purchase programme in 2015, years after the UK and US took similar action to shore up their economies.
It has so far pumped more than two trillion euros into the bloc's economy, while maintaining ultra-low interest rates.
The bank argues this has countered deflation and staved off a deeper economic crisis, but it has long signalled it would gradually wind the programme down.
BBC graph
Analysis
Dharshini David, economics correspondent
It's official: the ECB has confirmed it will cease its crisis bail-out programme, quantitative easing. It was last of the major central banks to embark on the scheme of pumping funds into the economy via bonds in 2009.
Since then it has injected more than €2tn, intended to be used by financial institutions to boost credit, and so demand across the economy.
Before the financial crisis, QE had been largely untried. Its potential impact was unknown - and is still unclear. In the UK, the Bank of England estimates that funds played a very significant role in boosting activity.
However, there is evidence that a large part of the funds were concentrated in the assets held by the wealthiest - from property to shares - boosting their value.
QE was a controversial project, not least with European politicians. And it is for political, rather than economic, reasons that it's been ceased: growth across the eurozone is lukewarm.
The ECB isn't removing its support altogether; it will reinvest existing QE money once bonds mature.
But economists question if the ECB may soon have to take further action to stimulate growth and, with interest rates at rock bottom, what shape that will take._________________www.lawyerscommitteefor9-11inquiry.orgwww.rethink911.orgwww.patriotsquestion911.comwww.actorsandartistsfor911truth.orgwww.mediafor911truth.orgwww.pilotsfor911truth.orgwww.mp911truth.orgwww.ae911truth.orgwww.rl911truth.orgwww.stj911.orgwww.v911t.orgwww.thisweek.org.ukwww.abolishwar.org.ukwww.elementary.org.ukwww.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
https://37.220.108.147/members/www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forumYou cannot attach files in this forumYou can download files in this forum